7.4 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
A crooked lawyer tries to protect his numbers running brother from a ruthless crime boss.
Starring: John Garfield, Thomas Gomez, Marie Windsor, Paul Fix, Howland ChamberlainDrama | 100% |
Film-Noir | 73% |
Crime | 8% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono
None
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 1.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
The House Un-American Activities Committee left a swath of ruined careers in its wake, but it also created a tangential reverberation centered around questions of what might have been. How many fantastic actors, writers and directors might have had significantly different career arcs, at least in the fifties, had the HUAC not engaged in its now notorious efforts to encourage the studios and their ruling elite to have various people blacklisted within the industry so that they either couldn’t work at all or were forced to do so under pseudonyms. (I should state in the interests of full disclosure that my perhaps overly negative attitude toward the HUAC may stem at least in part from the fact that my own family was affected by it. While my own father was a true blue American patriot and U.S. Army General, both of his brothers were rather well known leftists and one of them was hauled before the HUAC and the Dies Committee, and Martin Dies himself attempted—spectacularly unsuccessfully—to corner my late Uncle and keep him from making a living, calling him "the baby faced Pinko of New York City's docks". The irony here is that my Uncle, despite having been at the least a “fellow traveler” in the American Communist Party in the 1930s and 1940s, ended up being a multimillionaire who owned a great deal of property in lower Manhattan and several other boroughs at the time of his death.) One of the more notable careers sidelined by the HUAC was that of Abraham Polonsky, a man who made no bones about his Marxist leanings but who, like so many Communists back in the day, had signed up to fight what was then considered the real menace—Fascism—in World War II. After the War, Polonsky quickly made a name for himself as a writer in Hollywood, earning an Oscar nomination for his screenplay for Body and Soul. Polonsky followed up Body and Soul by both writing and directing Force of Evil, though the second film failed to receive either much critical appreciation or box office appeal. And shortly thereafter Polonsky found himself deemed “dangerous” by the “powers that were”, exiled into a forced hiatus where to this day his pseudonymous contributions are still largely unknown. Polonsky managed to start getting work under his own name again in television in the mid- sixties, and did finally direct another film in 1969, the Robert Redford starrer Tell Them Willie Boy is Here. Polonsky also evidently continued to make largely uncredited contributions to a number of films, including rather incredibly Mommie Dearest, but his output is sadly small, a lasting legacy to the devastating effects of the Red Scare.
Force of Evil is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.35:1. This is yet another incredibly strong looking black and white catalog release, one which offers excellent contrast, luscious blacks, brilliant whites and very nicely modulated gray scale. The elements utilized here are in mostly excellent shape, though there was one extremely odd anomaly at approximately 1:08:28 (when Garfield and Pearson are looking at a newspaper in a club) that I'm at a loss to fully explain, though my hunch is it's a digital problem and not one endemic to the elements themselves. The image warps and has horizontal scratch-like lines appearing for just a moment (probably less than a second), which leads me to believe it may be a mastering or authoring issue (the disc itself did not appear to have any scratches or other blemishes, and I'll be eager to hear if others experience this problem). Otherwise, though, this is a beautifully filmic presentation, with natural grain and a nicely clear and sharp image.
Force of Evil's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono mix serves the film reasonably well, especially since the film is a fairly small scale affair built out of dialogue scenes typically only involving two or three characters at a time. The soundtrack has some issues in the midrange, which are somewhat more noticeable during David Raksin's typically lush music cues than in the dialogue segments, but overall this track sounds very good, with generally excellent fidelity given appropriate expectations that take the age of the film and recording techniques of the day into account. Garfield's frequent voiceover narration sounds remarkably good throughout the film.
Any film which has held sway over Martin Scorsese as solidly as Force of Evil obviously has is certainly more than just a B-grade noir or thriller, as was generally thought at the time of the film's release. This is an oddly poetic exercise, one in love with language even as it details the moral degradation of its characters. The back story here, especially with regard to Polonsky, gives the film added poignancy. Garfield and Gomez are top notch, and the supporting cast is excellent as well. This Blu-ray offers great video and very good audio. Highly recommended.
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Includes Elia Kazan: Outsider 1982 Documentary
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Encore Edition | Limited Edition to 3000 - SOLD OUT
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4K Restoration
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Warner Archive Collection
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Limited Edition to 3000 - SOLD OUT
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